That 1.5 million figure is complete hogwash - based on the completely unscientific Lancet study which never matched up with Iraqi death certificates or media reports and was conducted by known Ba'athists in a totally unsupervised manner. I would expect a journo with our public service broadcaster to know that - but have no real belief they would.

As for the less than 3,000 figure that of course fails to take into account all the people who have died prematurely as a result of exposure to the poisonous dust.